Audio headphones are generally designed to transduce an electronic input signal to an acoustic wave across a frequency range with the expectation that all users hear in the same way. Standard audio headphones are unable to take into account differences in conductive and sensorineural hearing in users. Hearing loss is experienced by many people, especially with aging, and even people with “normal hearing” have varying sensitivity to different frequencies of sound. The clinical definition of “normal” hearing is wide (i.e., thresholds between −10 to +25 dB across frequency).
In order to select headphones that are best suited to an individual user, that user is currently limited to trying a range of headphones and picking those that best “fit” that user's hearing. Users will try various on-ear, over-ear or in-ear headphones or earbuds and make a subjective assessment of the best sound reproduction available for them.
While some headphones allow a user to manually adjust audio equalization, either by operation of controls available on the headphones themselves or via a wired or wireless connection to a smartphone app or the like, such equalization is once again based on manual adjustment by the user rather than audiometric information.
It would be desirable to provide a method of personalizing an auditory stimulus, produced by one or more loudspeakers configured to be held in place close to or in a user's ear, that uses subjective and/or objective audiometric information to automatically adapt said auditory stimulus to be well suited to a user's hearing profile. It would also be desirable to provide a method of personalizing an auditory stimulus produced by one or more loudspeakers that ameliorates or overcomes one or more disadvantages of known sound reproduction techniques.